News as Entertainment Format

Author(s):  
Melissa J. Robinson ◽  
Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick

The informative value of news has often been the focus of mass communication research, but individuals do tune into the news for entertainment purposes. In addition, news organizations frequently add entertainment elements into news stories to increase audience interest. Considering both of these factors, theorizing about the entertainment processes (e.g., appreciation, enjoyment, and suspense) that occur during news consumption is necessary to understand audience behavior. This chapter investigates factors that influence entertainment processes during news consumption. Two entertainment theories in particular (affective disposition theory and the affective news extended model) are reviewed to understand how affective responses influence enjoyment of news. It organizes existing research on affective responses and entertainment processes into two categories focusing on news event characteristics (i.e., elements that journalists cannot change) and message design principles that journalists create or edit. Areas for future research are provided.

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 2245
Author(s):  
Hamza Ethelb

One news event may be represented differently by different news organizations. Research in news representation remains sparse in Arabic. This article investigates some of the linguistic and textual devices used in journalistic texts. It looks at the way these devices are used to influence public opinion. This gives rise to significance of conducting this research. This study uses these devices within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). For the purpose of this study, four news articles produced by Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya were examined under CDA in order to show how journalists structure their news stories to imply an ideological stance. The analysis showed that Aljazeera and Al-Arabiya represented the people and the police differently, each according to their ideological and political leanings. This resulted in the public having different opinions of the event.


Author(s):  
Kristine Johnson

Advances in mobile phone technologies have changed the way news is consumed and created. Accordingly, this relates to three specific areas: 1.) people turn to their phones to consume news content, 2.) people use their phones to create news content, and 3.) news organizations are making accommodations based on these changes. In particular, research indicates an increase in the number of people who use their phones to access the news. In addition, given the availability of faster connections and phone-based multimedia capabilities, individuals now play a role in the creation news content. News organizations are taking notice and have adopted ways in which to utilize mobile phone capabilities, both in terms of the distribution and creation of news content. Suggested future research involves examining consumer use of more than one digital device at a time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Grizzard ◽  
Jialing Huang ◽  
Changhyun Ahn ◽  
Kaitlin Fitzgerald ◽  
C. Joseph Francemone ◽  
...  

Abstract. Morally ambiguous characters are often perceived to challenge Zillmann’s affective disposition theory of drama. At the heart of this challenge is the question: “To what extent can liking be independent of character morality?” The current study examines this question with a 2 (Disposition: Positive vs. Negative) × 3 (Character Type: Hero, Antihero, Villain) between-subjects factorial experiment that induces variance in liking and morality. We assess the influence of these orthogonal manipulations on measured liking and morality. Main effects of both manipulations on the measured variables emerged, with a significant correlation between measures. Regression analyses further confirm that liking is associated with perceived morality and vice versa. Because variance in morality was induced by the liking manipulation and variance in liking was induced by the morality manipulation, the assumptions of disposition theory regarding morality and liking seem accurate. Future research directions are provided that may help reconcile and integrate the seeming challenge of morally ambiguous characters with affective disposition theory.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Budzynski-Seymour ◽  
James Steele ◽  
Michelle Jones

Physical activity (PA) is considered essential to overall health yet it is consistently reported that children are failing to meet the recommended levels. Due to the bidirectional relationship between affective states and PA, affective responses are a potential predictor to long term engagement. Since late March 2020 the UK government enforced ‘lockdown’ measures to help control the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19); however, this has impacted children’s PA. Using online resources at home to support PA is now common. The primary aim of this research was to investigate the use of the Change4Life 10-minute Shake Ups to support PA by examining the effects of Disney branding upon children’s (n=32) post activity affective responses and perceived exertion. The secondary was to investigate the effect of the lockdown on PA habits. Children had similar positive affective responses and perceived effort to activities; however, branding was considered to be a key contributing factor based upon qualitative feedback from parents. Children’s PA levels dropped slightly since ‘lockdown’ was imposed; though online resources have been utilised to support PA. The use of immersive elements such as characters and narrative in PA sessions, as well as utilising online resources during ‘lockdown’ appear potentially promising for future research.


2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Van Cauwenberge ◽  
Leen d’Haenens ◽  
Hans Beentjes

AbstractIn light of the growing use of tablets for news reading and mobile news consumption behaviors, this study examined whether an innovative way of structuring news on the tablet that mimics mobile news behaviors reinforced attention for, and learning from, news. Specifically, it was theorized that the chronological and associative structuring of news articles into so-called developing news stories would lead to more attention for news, and better recall and comprehension of news, than the linear print newspaper structure that newspaper publishers continue to copy from print to tablet. A multiple-day experiment was set up using the eye-tracking method to measure and control for attention. The results show that the developing news structure increased comprehension of news substantively, independently of attention effects; no effects were found on attention and factual recall.


Author(s):  
Pamela Shoemaker

Simply put, gatekeeping involves deciding which messages to send to others and how to shape them. Billions of events occur each day, many with political ramifications, but there are more events than the news media can cover or even know about. Political information competes with all other topics to pass through source and media gates. Politicians create forces that constrain or facilitate this passage, but making it through one gate is usually not sufficient. Multiple gates in source, media, and audience channels winnow messages until we have those few that become television news stories or blog posts. To explain this process, gatekeeping theory was proposed in the late 1940s by Kurt Lewin; it is one of the older theories applied to the study of mass communication.


Author(s):  
Kevin Wallsten ◽  
Dilyana Toteva

The expansion of the Internet and the sudden popularity of Web 2.0 applications, such as blogs, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, raise important questions about the extent and consequences of homophilous sorting in online political discussions. In particular, there is growing concern that Internet users' ability to filter out alternative points of view will lead political discourse to become more polarized and fragmented along ideological lines. The decline of deliberative democracy and the breakdown of America's system of representative government, the story goes, will be the inevitable causalities of political discussions moving from in-person to online. Unfortunately, the empirical research in fields such as mass communication, political science, and sociology provides no hard and fast conclusions about the amount of online homophily in political discussions. This article details this conflicted body of research and points to some areas where future research may provide more insight into the intersection of online politics and homophilous sorting.


1993 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen L. Urban ◽  
John S. Hulland ◽  
Bruce D. Weinberg

The authors extend previous models for premarket forecasting of new durable consumer goods by including parameters that reflect consumers’ categorization and consideration processes. They propose a model and measurement methodology, which they apply to the premarket forecasting of a new automobile. They describe empirical data collection, parameter estimation, managerial implications, validation issues, and future research needs. The extended model generates new managerial insights into positioning and marketing planning effectiveness, can be used to simulate the effects of changes in positioning strategy on consideration and choice, and provides more detailed information about why consumers consider or reject a new brand. The relevance of the categorization extension for other new product models that condition choice on a consideration set is also explored.


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